


what i want

by neveroffanon



Series: hopes and dreams [1]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Martin is a manipulative father, set between 1.15 and 1.16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23114176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveroffanon/pseuds/neveroffanon
Summary: Martin and Malcolm have a little talk after he's discharged from the hospital.  Malcolm falls a little deeper into his father's machinations.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & Martin Whitly
Series: hopes and dreams [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661428
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	what i want

“What I want is what any father wants, my boy. I want my son to be adult enough to apologize when he’s wrong.”

There was a pause, unfilled but for the static of the connection and their breathing, asynchronous, and still somehow in tandem. The world narrowed to his fist with its five fingers crushing the sides of the phone. 

“Apologize for what? You offered yourself, no one forced you. _You_ had all the control, just like you always do,” Malcolm bit out the words and shut his teeth, swallowing hard against the rest of the words that wanted to spill past his lips. 

“Is that right? And what kind of father would I be to let my son stab me? No one believes that for a moment, my boy. Oh no,” his father voice mocked, faintly, “everyone knows that either you or your mother stabbed me in the heart. Dear old dad, murdered in his cell. Or near enough.” He coughed and hauled in a wheezing breath, and Malcolm’s chest constricted almost as tightly as his hands. 

“I’m sure that lovely new assistant district attorney must be salivating already. She’ll make her name on this case. Throw you in here with me, or maybe your mother will get to see how her money’s been spent at Bedford all this time... but that’s by the way.”

Malcolm squeezed shut his eyes, mind racing, turning over the moment in his father’s cell. There wasn’t a way out, and it didn’t really matter. An apology was nothing. He was a little sorry, after all. The quiet in his mind had left him with too much time to think.

“I’ll come see you this afternoon. Will that do?” 

“That’ll do for now, my boy, that’ll do for now. Mr. David tells me phone time is up for the day, but I’ll be waiting.”

The connection dropped, and Malcolm’s hand flopped, boneless, to his side. It twitched, just for a moment. He stared at down at it, waiting for the trembling to shiver its way from his fingers to his wrist. Nothing happened. It had only taken a moment of violence to undo what decades of therapy had never once been able to solve. 

Maybe he really was his father's son.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything in almost a year, but Prodigal Son has me hooked!!!


End file.
